The invention relates to improvements in methods of and in apparatus for manipulating sections of photographic films, particularly prior to the making of prints in copying machines.
Published German patent application No. 30 29 046 of Peters discloses a method of preparing sections of photographic roll films for reintroduction into a copying machine for the purpose of making additional or substitute prints on photographic paper or the like. Each section is provided with a lateral extension, and such lateral extensions are affixed to an elongated strip which is transported through the copying machine. A drawback of the proposal of Peters is that the copying machine must be provided with a specially designed copying platform, i.e., that the strip with film sections extending laterally therefrom cannot be transported through an existing machine without substantial modifications.
A modern copying machine for the making of prints on photographic paper or the like is normally equipped with a platform which carries a pair of film transporting rolls ahead of as well as a pair of advancing rolls behind the copying window. Such copying machine cannot be readily used for the making of copies of two or three or four film frames on short sections of photographic roll films or of a single film frame because the distance of the upstream pair of advancing rolls from the downstream pair of advancing rolls is or can be greater than the length of a single film frame or the combined length of a small number of frames. Therefore, copying machines of the just outlined character cannot be used for the making of prints from relatively short film sections, especially sections of photographic films having a series of small frames. This creates problems because a photographic laboratory which is equipped with a modern automatic copying machine must maintain in service a second machine which is capable of making prints from individual film frames irrespective of the format of such frames.